Route 102 – One man’s year-long journey……Day 19

By
Jeremy Williams

2 February 2015 00:00

To mark this momentous year for UK GAAP, I'm embarking on a mission to work my way through FRS 102, reading a portion on each working day of 2015 and writing a short blog entry on my thoughts and musings (be they few or many). New month, same section...

DAY 19 (2 Feb)

What's the difference between a mistake and an error? One's a young unmarried slice of Wagyu beef and the other is defined in 10.20. (That's the dreadful joke over for today - I should say that I am blogging in a tea break at an all-day meeting, so this will be brief!)

More specifically, what is an accounting error? You may be surprised to read that 10.20 includes 'the effects of mathematical mistakes, mistakes in applying accounting policies, oversights or misrepresentations of facts, and fraud'. That's a pretty wide-ranging list. I suspect many of us would have assumed an error had to be a virtually unforgivable sin, but a 'mistake in applying accounting policies'? That sounds a lot more common. And remember (from my last post) that material, rather than fundamental errors will now need to be corrected with a prior period adjustment. There may be trouble ahead...